In case we've forgotten, the Federal Government has been shutdown now for thirteen days. I'll admit, I've moved it to the back of my mind--probably because it's pledge week on NPR so it's one of those rare times when I'd actually rather be listening to music in my car.
So, without NPR, I turn to my second greatest source of news: my Facebook feed. Yes, I'm having a moment of self-reflection and hearing what's wrong with that statement.
Facebook--especially with cross-posting from Twitter and Pinterest--makes it very easy to post an image with entirely no context and believe you're receiving a full story. This is the only explanation I can come up with for why my troop-loving and liberal friends (not mutually exclusive groups by any means) are all posting dramatic pictures of veterans moving barricades across D.C. and cleaning up trash at the National Mall.
These pictures seem like a reminder that veterans are suffering ill effects of the government shutdown. These pictures appear to be a rallying point around getting Congress back to work so that our active duty military and veterans will receive benefits currently cut-off, like death and burial benefits and G.I. stipends.
This rally had nothing to do with restarting the government in order to honor and serve our veterans.
Extreme conservatives used veterans in order to advance their own racist, jingoist agenda of disgracing President Obama. It could be that it's a smart political decision to distract from their own disgrace--according to a Washington Post poll, 74 percent of Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown, compared to 61 percent who blame Democrats and 53 percent who blame President Obama.
A key speaker at this rally was Senator Ted Cruz. Another key speaker? Sarah Palin.
In the name of veterans, a speaker from Freedom Watch asked ralliers "to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down."
Regardless of the fact that the Department of the Interior has made an exception to honor veterans and opened memorials to members of the Honor Flight program, Sarah Palin accused President Obama of disrespecting veterans by denying them access to the memorials.
She failed to call out GOP members of the House for disrespecting veterans and their families by suspending access to regional VA offices and delaying benefit claims.
At best, this rally will keep the government shutdown fresh in the minds of people like me, who have all but checked out at this point. At worst, this kind of behavior will strengthen a weakening Tea Party base and distract from the House Republicans' singular role in this shutdown.
Tuesday morning the Military Coalition will descend on the National Mall to host another rally in the name of veterans. We'll see whether the Tea Party can butt out so that veterans themselves will be allowed to pull attention to lacking support for veterans during the shutdown, and so they can place blame where blame is due. Instead of marching to the White House, maybe this group will get it right and insist Congress meets them on the steps of the Capitol.
